This post I wanted to get up in December but it turns out it benefited me to wait after the New Year as I am able to share two sample ideas in one blog post.

Here goes… Some of my friends caught some images of my daughter on my personal Instagram account with her 1/2 birthday and asked me a bunch of questions about her attire. Yes you read that correct. 1/2! My daughter could not wait to turn 4 1/2 as most of her friends are older than her and apparently when you are 4 every second of getting more mature and independent counts! Oh to be young again , because all I do is try forget my age when people ask!

With some thought and deliberation I decided that my daughters excited feelings of this day has to be acknowledged in a tasteful way without breaking the bank. After all each moment of a child’s life should be celebrated if they care enough about it enough because you’ll never get it back again.

My simple ideas with some pizzazz were hanging glitter pink balloons, organizing a surprise special friend over for a play-date. I also made crown window sprinkle nutella sandwiches, printed castle and crown images for color time and because it was Christmas time our Elf “Ellie” got dressed in her princess dolls dress. I used bracelets as a necklace for added glamour & blew up a water balloon and put it on a chocolate pop stick. When it came time for cake we had 1/2 of a cake for dessert.

*note candle -melt wax and stick 😉

What I also did was do a totally affordable DIY personalized bodysuit for that day that and that is what I am going to address now from that one famous photo on instagram.

What you will need :

1 plain bodysuit (any color)

Iron on Stencils or stick on letters (note stick on are temporary will not wash). I chose Gold.

Gold Glitter optional

Elmer’s glue (only if you chose to add glitter)

Fancy tutu of your choice

Above you will note that I mixed both stick on numbers and Glitter.

Lay Flat as pictured. Here I started to make for the slash in the half the outline of the lower case letter l. I than realized as I started to work that I had an extra gold arrow and changed it later.

I than used Elmer’s glue and wrote in script “Birthday”

Shake off excess glitter and dry overnight. Voila – Your done!

Below I gave another friend of ours the idea of DIY for our friends birthday. She swore she couldn’t do it. I assured her she could and make it fabulous. Only this was not a half Birthday but Riley’s actual Birthday!

Mom went to Michael’s as I suggested, got some iron on numbers and letters found a sparkle tutu and was the talk of the town for the day. Kudos’s to Riley’s Mom! Great job. Glad I was able to inspire you! Keep following me for great tips and tricks I have another one coming this week. Promise 😉

This year as hard as it was for our family personally. We had a lot of losses this year so unexpected. I was not going to let that get in the way of traditional Thanksgiving. I still did our typical fixings and made my Spiced – Cured Turkey just as Martha explains here. It happens to be my favorite recipe. The only thing I do admittedly do with this recipe is I will cut back on the portion of the salt by almost 1/2 as I am not a lover of that and try not to avoid it at all costs.

Our table definitely was not as elaborate as had in the previous years but it still was a pretty tablescape.

I never know what flower will strike my mood, I just walk into a florist see what flowers they have that I think will work and home come and create.

All of my dinnerware was found by antiquing and I have been by collecting by stalking craig’s list, IG accounts, ebay and thrift stores. This year’s find was the bread plate. The images are hard to see in the photograph but they were gold foil swirls. As luck would have it anything gold foil is trending.

Ofcourse we cannot forget Ellie the Elf that comes out each year on Thanksgiving. Look closely to spot her 😉

I can still say we are truly blessed regardless of this years heartaches and loss. We have such wonderful support group from our family and friends. Our daughter is the Greatest gift of all and that is all I can ask for ♥ Happy Thanksgiving from Ours to Yours!

What is trending? #SugarSkulls. This year I gave our theme a bit of a festive feminine edge for our Halloween ‘Spook-caular’ event with Candy Corn colors and Sugar Skulls. After all I cannot really spook the kids at 4 & 5 years old with real creepy goblins and goolish treats. I would say this was a perfect compromise with lots of fun traditions from the previous years.

Some of our activities included, decorating pumpkins , doughnut string game, Halloween egg hunt with festive prizes for the occasion inside, bobbing for apples, halloween Tattoos, and a special appearance from Raggedy Ann from Clowing around town which was super symbolic to me this year 😉

and of course we cannot forget about the snacks and treats! Lots of laughs and was enjoyed by all!

If you would like the free download for the candy corn print paper Click here.

If you would like the free download for the pumpkin candy corn cheese stickers for laughing cow Click here.

The cookie witch hats was an idea I saw on pintrest, however they were all milk and or dark chocolate that I saw, and I thought why not make it white chocolate to match the stripes on the cookies. The red velvet cookie was my daughter’s idea instead of the typical coco color on the fudge stripes. It definitely was an experiment.

Our little goolish guests were given orange, silver and black bat beaded necklaces that were put on each plate and besides the sweet treats and crafts they also took home a fun pumpkin tissue surprise. That you can learn how to make yourself with this tutorial. I had to try it out the moment I ran across it because it was super adorbs from One little project at a time.

Here is a free printable for the NO TRICKS, JUST TREATS sign. Click here.

I was very busy entertaining all of our friends so please forgive me for not capturing every detail. Some of the Mommy’s were kind enough to share some shots they got from the day. Here is one of the kiddie table.